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It is the time of the year that invites to go out, enjoy the 1st rays of sun and have a drink. Question is: where to go and what to drink? When it comes down to drinks, I feel like something that screams Spring. Something that makes you long for long evenings in the sun… Some amaretto maybe? And tell me… Who wouldn’t want to have their drinks serves by a waitress as pretty as Ashley?
We had a whole day to fill after the Bruce Springsteen show fell trough on our Prague Trip in the spring of 2024. We soon came up with an alternative: a visit to the aviation museum Kbely. They have a plethora of Warshaw Pact-designed aircraft on display. Planes we don’t see often in European and US museums. It was well worth the visit.
Their shiny Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 Fagot was a beauty. This Korean War era plane outclassed many of the USAF fighters in the skies over Korea until the US introduced the F-86 Sabre.
The museum also had quite a few Cold War era aircraft. This Sukhoi SU-22M4 is a typical example of that period. It served as a fighter-bomber from the mid 1960’s until the late 1990’s with many air forces of the former Warshaw Pact as well as countries in the Arab world.
Their collection spanned many decades of military aviation. Mainly by Soviet and Czech design from as early as the 1920’s all the way to the 2nd World War and the Cold War era. Both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.
Another highlight was the Messerschmitt Me 262. It was the 1st time I saw that plane in real life. The Me 262 was the world’s 1st jet powered fighter. A German design that flew with the Czechoslovak Air Force until 1951.
We looked in awe at the reentry capsule of the Sojuz 28 spaceship. It is not every day, you get to see a Russian-built spacecraft. Sojuz 28 launched on March 2nd, 1978 with cosmonauts Alexey Gubarev and Vladimír Remek–a Czechoslovak national on board. It returned to Earth 8 days later. It struck us the most how tiny the capsule is. We could not imagine fitting 2 people in it for 8 whole days.
Back in May of this year, I traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic. Me and one of my best friends drove out for a 4 day city trip and and to go see Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in concert one evening. There is so much to see in Prague. We logged quite a few miles hiking around town and taking in the sights. Every corner we turned, there was more beautiful architecture to admire. I took most of the pics my iPhone and my small Canon G7x.
We definitely have a good time though. And we did not forget to take the occasional selfie.
One can not go to Prague and not visit the memorial to Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc in front of the National Museum. Both Palach and Zajíc set themselves on fire in the protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troups in 1968.
One of the few places I took out my dSLR was to shoot the baroque library of the Klementinum. It is deemed to be one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. And they’re not wrong! It is surely up there with the Nottebohmzaal at the Hendrik Conscience Library in Antwerp or the library of Trinity College in Dublin. What do you think?
The city is full of great food spots. Prague’s restaurants serve a wide variety of dishes and cuisines. From the local specialties, to a cool hotdog joint for lunch, to a haute-cuisine Asian restaurant. We’ve had great food at a reasonable price. And the beer is good too.
Unfortunately, the main event–a concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band–got cancelled due to Bruce having vocal problems. Sort of a bummer, but it gave us the whole of Tuesday to visit the Aviation Museum Kbely. More on that in a future blog post.
Even though the Springsteen concert got cancelled, the trip was marvelous. I discovered a city full of beautiful architecture. I’d be happy to return one day.
The themes for the 2024 Sanicole Airshow were 50 years of F-16 and War Birds. And we got a lot of Viper action. The Danish, Turkish and US Air Force sent their demo teams to great us. They were met by Vipers of 31SQN and 349SQN of Kleine Brogel Air Base.
And when those Vipers meet the War Birds, you’re in for a treat. We were treated to a BAF heritage flight where an F-16 met up with a Belgian owned Spitfire MkXVI in original 349SQN livery.
This heritage flight was even more special: the Danish Air Force F-16 demo escorted Sally B in the skies over Sanicole. Sally B is the only airworthy Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in Europe. She is based the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, UK but she is actually Danish owned. It was the express wish of Captain Troels “TEO” Vang, the 2024 Danish F-16 demo pilot, to fly this formation.
The Avro Lancaster and the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress “Sally B” from the Imperial War Museum in Duxford are always a beautiful sight for sore eyes. And they fit the War Bird theme just perfectly.
The highlight of the show for me would be the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk of the Swedish Air Force though. So, on Saturday, I parked myself in front of that beautiful Swedish bird on the flight line. It gave me a good look at them taking off before their display. And I had lots of opportunities to shoot pics.
On Sunday, I set up camp right in front of another of my favorites. It was my 1st encounter with the new AH-64E Apache Guardian of the Royal Dutch Air Force. It was too cloudy and grey to my liking for photos on Sunday though. But all and all, it felt good to be back at an airshow after last year’s premature end to the fun due to a twisted ankle at the 2023 Belgian Air Force Days. That ankle still hurts from time to time btw.
Let’s finish up this blog post with some random pics from the weekend.
Kirsten shared pics of her last winter’s skiing trip on her Instagram. She wore this cool black & white ski outfit in some of her photos. I thought it would be a good outfit to combine with a little latex for some fun in the snow. We had very little snow in Belgium this winter. Therefor, I asked Kirsten if we could shoot the outfit in the studio. Just because it was such a cool outfit.
I used one of these images to test the new AI features in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to turn my studio pic into a shot that could have done in the Alps. I think this one came out quite realistic.
When Ashley dropped a party pic of herself in this dress on her Instagram, my immediate reaction was: “We have to shoot this dress! We really have to shoot this dress.” And so, we set up a date and shot the dress…
Model Nele has a knack for selecting the most luxurious latex lingerie in my collection. She choose this outfit for all off the garments I had prepared for our shoot. I think she was quite right to choose this combo, don’t you think?
The Easter Bunny dropped by my studio today. She said she wanted something special for her 2024 egg hunt. So, I dressed her up as the cutest latex easter bunny you’ve ever seen.
When the easter bunny left my studio, model Liz dropped by for a few latex shots…
My earlier post on Yaël’s shoot, Latex and Suede, was only half of the pics we did. After a little break with lots of time to chat and catch up things, I changed the set. The outfits we selected for the 2nd half of the shoot were a lot bolder. All black outfits set against a stark blue backdrop. Yaël posed as catwoman, a biker girl and showed off her tattoos in a latex & lingerie outfit.
Combining latex and vanilla clothes is a lot of fun. And also a little bit of a challenge. ‘Cause it’s aways a bit of a surprise what clothes a model brings to a shoot. But when Yaël showed me her brown suede vest and her combat boots, the rest was easy.
